NFL: Stance on sports betting has nothing to do with money

League continues to stress integrity-of-game argument

There’s a belief among the gambling community that the NFL’s disdain for sports betting is more about money than protecting the integrity of the game.

Skeptics believe the NFL and the other leagues fighting to stop the expansion of legal sports betting in the U.S. ultimately want a piece of the profits and will continue to oppose it until they secure a share.

It’s a notion the NFL adamantly denies. When it comes to sports wagering, the NFL — with revenue of $9.7 billion in 2012, according to SportsBusiness Journal — is not interested in the money.

“(Revenue) has nothing to do with it and never has,” NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy told The Linemakers on Sporting News.

Still, ideas have been floated in Washington, D.C. about how to share revenue from legal sports betting with the leagues. There’s been talk of licensing fees and sponsorships.

Lobbyist Joe Brennan, Director of Interactive Media Entertainment and Gaming Association (IMEGA), said one discussed plan was to use sports betting revenue to create a fund for retired NFL players.

Or how about using the revenue to study head injuries?

During a 2011 sports law conference in D.C., Brennan spoke about the revenue that could be generated from expanded legal sports betting and ways the NFL could benefit.

Jay Moyer, a Fordham law professor and former Executive Vice President and General Counsel of the NFL, was in the audience and took umbrage with the suggestion that the league is or ought to be interested in revenue from sports betting.

“Getting the leagues revenue is not the issue,” Brennan said in a recent interview with The Linemakers. “They do not want people betting on their games.”

McCarthy echoed those sentiments in a Tuesday phone interview and emphasized that the popularity of the NFL is directly attributed to the unpredictability of the outcomes.

“The pillar of the success of the National Football League has been in part because fans don’t know what’s going to happen on any given Sunday,” McCarthy said. “To be able to watch unscripted, unfiltered drama play out on a football field is what keeps people coming back.”

Sports betting proponents argue that the increased regulation that would come from legalization would help protect the games’ integrity. And really, with the amount of scrutiny an NFL game receives and Nevada sports books on the constant lookout for suspicious betting patterns, it’s very unlikely any unscrupulous parties would choose an NFL game to fix.

“That’s a good thing,” McCarthy acknowledged.

Integrity of the game

The integrity-of-the-game argument has been attacked in the courtroom and by mainstream media, including some of the NFL’s broadcast partners.

In November deposition testimony, lawyers for the state of New Jersey pressed NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell about the league’s willingness to play games at Wembley Stadium in London, where sports betting is legal.

McCarthy says the league closes the on-site betting windows at Wembley Stadium.

But there are more than 30 gambling parlors in the Wembley Park area, where the stadium is located. According to prominent UK sports book William Hill, six times more money, up to £300,000 (about $450,000), is bet on the NFL games played at Wembley Stadium compared to how much is wagered on a regular-season televised game played in the U.S.

“We try to shut down what we can,” McCarthy said.

Opponents also point to the NFL embracing fantasy football and stress that fantasy sports are just a different way of betting on the game, wagering on the statistical performances of individual players instead of the final score.

Millman cited an academic paper from two St. Louis University law students that showed the value of NBA franchises had increased by 44 percent since the Tim Donaghy gambling scandal was revealed in 2007.

McCarthy declined to comment on anything regarding the NBA.

Size of the pie

Even if the sports leagues were interested in revenues generated from legalized sports betting, there simply might not be enough money to go around. According to the Nevada Gaming Commission, the state’s sports books won $68.4 million on football wagers (both college and pro) in 2012, 4.37 percent of the total money bet last year.

That’s a slim profit margin that gets even tighter if, for example, books were forced to pay licensing fees to the leagues in order to offer wagering on their games.

And the licensing fee or “rake” that could be generated from those figures amounts to a pittance compared to the NFL’s $9 billion-plus in revenues.

But the NFL says it isn’t interested in any of that and is fighting for only one thing.

“Protecting the integrity of our games is as important as many of our other priorities, like player health and safety,” stressed McCarthy. “It’s a major thing, not just the only thing.”

While the NFL’s not interested in the revenue, cash-strapped states are.

A study by veteran Nevada gaming company Cal Neva projected New Jersey sports books could take nearly $9 billion in bets annually. With an eight percent gross gaming revenue tax rate, the state’s annual windfall could be as high as $220 million, according to the study.

Despite New Jersey’s recent defeat in a U.S. District Court, Brennan doesn’t believe the sports betting issue is going away.

“Things aren’t getting any cheaper for the states, and they don’t want to raise taxes on their citizens, so the next thing out there is gambling,” Brennan said. “And sports betting is the most under-leveraged form of gambling.”